Texts in all possible sizes and forms are omnipresent in our Museums. A lot of experience and guidelines exists on how good and readable museumtexts should be written. With a lot of “sérieux” the dedicated Museologist spends hours of monks work on this aspect of exhibition development. But, do visitors actually read the texts Museulogists so carefully wrote and prepared for them? What incites visitors to read labels? Which ones more, which one less? What (kind of texts) incite to interact when in group etc.
By means of a mix of observations and interviews, empirical data was gathered on how visitors deal (with different types) of Museumtexts. For the different types of texts, we measured respectively the “attracting power” (percentage of visitors stopping and reading), the interactions (pointing, explaining, discussing, etc.) and the attitudes visitors have about the texts.
Research type
Method of data collection
Focussed observations in combination with interviews.
Contact
Field work: March-May 2013
Report: The results were presented at the Ecsite conference
(6-8 june 2013 Gothenburg).
